Semi-hollowbody and acoustic sounds from a solidbody-sized guitar with USB output.

The Ultra-339 is for guitarists seeking the power of the Ultra-III's breakthrough electronics in an ES-style guitar, featuring Epiphone's legendary ES semi-hollow body construction in a reduced sized, the new Ultra-339 will take your guitar playing to the Ultra-level! Case sold separately.

The Birth of a LegendFirst introduced in the late '50s at our legendary Kalamazoo factory, the ES series became an instant rock classic, bringing the look and feel of an archtop to a generation of players who had grown up playing solid body guitars like the Les Paul. The ES-335, the first in the ES series, was an instant success. But for many players who were used to smaller solid body guitars, the ES-335 felt too bulky to play on stage. The new Epiphone Ultra-339 is the perfect remedy, featuring smaller body dimensions while still retaining the bell-like tone the ES series is famous for. And best of all, the Ultra-339 is loaded with Ultra technology!

Great TonewoodsWhile the Ultra-339 is packed with cutting edge technology, it still maintains the same basic specifications that made ES-style guitars the choice of two generations of artists from Chuck Berry to B.B. King to Alex Lifeson. The Ultra-339 features a laminated maple body with a solid center block, classic f holes, and a comfortable 24.75" scale SlimTaper™ "D" profile mahogany neck, which is glued-in with a mortise and tenon neck joint. The 12" radius rosewood fingerboard has 22 medium jumbo frets just like vintage ES-style archtops, a 1.68" nut and mother-of-pearl dot inlays. The Ultra-339 comes in three beautiful color finishes: Cherry, Natural and Vintage Sunburst.

Two Great Pickup Systems in One GuitarAt the heart of the new Ultra-339 are two pickup systems. The classic pickup system features Epiphone's new ProBucker™ humbucker pickups—a ProBucker-2™ in the neck position and a ProBucker-3™ in the bridge position. Both are patterned after Gibson's famous BurstBuckers™ and are wound to the same specs as the Kalamazoo factory's legendary PAF pickups.

The second pickup system features Shadow™ Germany's patented NanoMag™ pickup embedded discretely at the end of the fingerboard. Featuring three samarium cobalt magnets, an air coil, and active electronics, this low-impedance pickup captures subtle body acoustics and string harmonics. Together, you get powerful humbucker-driven rock crunch as well as shimmering acoustic-like tones and everything in-between.

One-Of-A-Kind Electrics Built-inBuilt discretely into the bridge pickup mounting ring is a full-function, chromatic tuner. Just push the ON/OFF button and sound is immediately muted when the tuner is activated. Eleven color-coded LED's identify the note and whether it's sharp, flat or in-tune. Also, to allow quick and seamless changes between each pickup system, the Ultra-339's NanoMag™ Volume control now doubles as an A/B switch. Just push it in and quickly toggle between ProBuckers™, NanoMag™ or both pickup systems with no delay and no "pop." Two additional LED's on the pickup mounting ring provide a visual indicator of which pickup system is active (Red=NanoMag; Blue-Magnetic or Red/Blue=Both).

Hook-Up Directly To Your ComputerThe Ultra-339 features three different outputs. By using the standard 1/4" MONO output, both the ProBuckers™ and NanoMag™ are mixed into one signal. Plug in an additional 1/4" cable into the STEREO output, and the ProBuckers™ are routed through one cable and the NanaMag™ the other. In this way, you can send the ProBuckers™ to your favorite guitar amp and the NanoMag ™ to a PA or an acoustic guitar amp. Using the A/B switch, you can now change "on-the-fly" between the two outputs.

The third output is USB. Using a USB cable (included with the Ultra 339), you can plug directly into your computer and use guitar applications such as Native Instruments GuitarRig™ 4LE to play your Ultra-339 through a variety of simulated amplifiers and effects and listen through your computer speakers or headphones. GuitarRig™ also features a recorder, a metronome, a tuner and much more.

Epiphone HardwareEpiphone hardware is the best in the business and the Ultra-339 features Epiphone's patent-applied-for LockTone™ locking Tune-o-matic bridge and Stopbar tailpiece for increased sustain and string changing ease as well as quality Wilkinson™ 14:1 ratio vintage style machine heads with tombstone buttons for tuning accuracy and stability.

Negative remarks: (1) Wish there was an on/off switch for the nanomag so I didn't have to unplug the guitar when it's not in use to save the battery. I hate...Read complete review

Negative remarks: (1) Wish there was an on/off switch for the nanomag so I didn't have to unplug the guitar when it's not in use to save the battery. I hate that. I'm gonna forget and leave it plugged in one night and eat up a battery. And 9V batteries are pricey these days.

Anyway, this is my review from having it one day. We'll see how I like it after the new has worn off. I'm expecting to like the nanomag pickup for a LONG time. It really does sound good. It might not sound just like an acoustic through my guitar amp, but the sound it makes I do like a lot. Sparkle and chime! All the snap of a single coil plus some other tonal goodness to boot. On a scale of 1-10 I give the nanomag a 13. I don't know that it's going to replace an acoustic, but I like what it does. And it does sound like an acoustic through the PA or USB.

Equipment used for running it through its paces: Peavey Classic 30 head, 2x12 cabinet with WGS Reapers. Only pedal I've used with it so far is a Crybaby Wah pedal (sounded good).Alright, so I ordered the Vintage Sunburst Ultra 339 and got it December 15, 2011. I've wanted a 339 for a long time, but didn't want to spend $2000 on a new Gibson. AND I've wanted a guitar that had good acoustic sounds. I looked for a long time at getting a used Schecter C1 E/A or getting a Ghost piezo added on to another guitar, but never pulled the trigger on either one. And then I found out about the Ultra 339. I have a 335 guitar (an Ibanez AS103) but it's heavy and a little large (I'm a smaller framed person), and it only has the dual humbuckers, so no acoustic sound and no single coil sound. My favorite thing to play is a single coil at the neck for beautiful blues and jazz lead tones. The Ultra is supposed to do it all.

It does. Fairly well.

I'm not saying the acoustic is completely convincing... it's okay... because it's a magnetic pickup, it doesn't have the percussiveness that an acoustic has (or that a piezo has) but it does pickup the overtones that an acoustic has. If this pickup were combined with a piezo for percussiveness, it would be perfect for an acoustic sound. As it is, I would say it sounds more like a classical guitar than a steel string acoustic maybe... or maybe a combination of the two... yeah.

Whatever the case, I love the Shadow nanomag pickup. For bright, clear, chimey tones off the neck with great sparkle... wow. I turn the nanomag controls (bass, treble, volume) all the way to 11 on the back panel, then just dial it back a bit on the front of the guitar to 5 or 6, and set my neck humbucker to full volume, and it gives me just the tone I want. If I need something particularly bright and clear, I just turn the nanomag volume all the way up. For something more acoustic sounding, you turn the nanomag up and the humbucker down. Easy.

The USB jack works good. Tried it with my laptop and Audacity, and it worked just fine. The acoustic setting sounds pretty convincing through the USB. Better than through my Peavey Classic 30. Epiphone does recommend using it stereo for live performance... plugging the nanomag into a PA or acoustic amp, and the magnetics into a guitar amp, but I probably won't.

I don't know yet how long the battery will last.

I do like the built in tuner.The fit and finish of the guitar are good. Typical sorts of problems with chinese made guitars... I had to take off the electronics cover and use a dustbuster with an extension piece to vacuum out the extra rattling pieces of wood left from when they routed out the chamber (really, how hard is it for them to clean it out before they put all the wires in?)

And I needed to loosen the truss rod a tad to give a little more relief to get rid of some fret buzz (the neck was completely flat when I got it, so I needed to give it just a little arc to get rid of the fret buzz).

And I had to remove the pickguard in order to get rid of the paper/plastic guard they put on the pickguard (which was a PAIN! Really... I need a guard on the pickguard?!)

And I had to set the intonation (which you always have to do).

And restring it with the strings I like (GHS Brite Flats 700 9-42).

But no major problems. It's pretty and it sounds good. Action is just slightly higher than I like, but no big deal. I've loosened the truss rod a quarter turn to get rid of fret buzz. I might eventually loosen it more and lower the action too to see if I can get it as low as I like it. But right now it's set up perfect to play with fingers or slide.Seems like a pretty good deal for the variety of tones you can get out of it. Not too many other guitars are gonna give you this much of a tonal spectrum.

VS

Most Liked Negative Review

Epiphone Ultra-339

I really REALLY wanted to like this guitar. I had been drooling over it since I first saw it in the MF fall catalog. Looking back on what I've written, the problems do...Read complete review

I really REALLY wanted to like this guitar. I had been drooling over it since I first saw it in the MF fall catalog. Looking back on what I've written, the problems do sound kind of nitpicky and I realize that $800 is not a lot for a guitar compared to your PRS's and Les Pauls, but considering this is one of the more expensive guitars in Epiphone's lineup, I expected a bit more polish. I might have put up with the fit &amp; finish issues on a $300 guitar, but not for the price I paid. I sent it back. Unbelievable feature set. USB, onboard tuner, the ability to split the signal between acoustic &amp; electric sounds... Pretty much the perfect set of features for playing rhythm guitar in a pop or worship band. The push-button style of switching between acoustic/electric/both signals is very cool. The cherry finish and guitar in general looks beautiful.....and here's where it falls down.

-Fret finish was below average. No sharp edges, but few of the upper ones could have used some more polishing. I hate feeling scraping when bending strings.-Paint on the binding. Might not be an issue with the natural color- mine was cherry red, which is the color God intended hollow bodies to be. I don't think God intended the paint to be on the binding though.-The tone knob was on the wrong pot and it had a fingerprint on it. No big deal, right? Just wipe it off? Apparently whoever pressed the knob on had glue or varnish on their finger, because it was permanent. When I removed the tone knob to put it in the correct place, the little metallic 'tone' disc came off and needed to be glued back on.-There was something rattling around inside the guitar, probably small pieces of wood leftover from carving out the chamber.

This is a complex guitar electronics-wise, so the above fit and finish problems do not inspire confidence in the longevity of said electronics. I have not heard of any specific problems on the older and somewhat similar Les Paul Ultra II's, so maybe (hopefully) these fears are unfounded.

The electric tone was more reminiscent of a solid body than hollowbody. Not really a plus or minus, just something to be aware of. You can get a great range of sounds by mixing various amounts of the Nanomag in with the electric signal. You will want to change the strings ASAP- the ones that came on the guitar were terrible. It could also benefit from a good setup, but that's true of any guitar. Ultimately I felt the tone was somewhat uninspiring. I don't know, I can't put my finger on it- it was just kind of 'meh'. Probably a personal thing, YMMV. Maybe I was expecting this to lean more towards the hollowbody side of things tone-wise, since I love that sound.

The guitar is heavier than expected. Not Les Paul heavy, but definitely not light. You can tell the lower side of the guitar has a lot of electronics in it.Considering the features of the guitar, I would say that it is a pretty good value. It's too bad the fit and finish problems drag it down.

The good:Great guitar, very .versatile with acoustic sound and hum buckets combined.great feel and playability.the bad: horrible quality control.these must be seconds.MF replaced the first one and the second one is the same . Sorry MF but a great guitar and poor quality control made for an ultimltly unpleasant experience.

Although not on this site...I had been reading about the fret buzzing being an issue.. With a goodly deal of setup work (done at place of purchase) the problem was 'usually' resolved. (In some cases never.)Bought my 339 elsewhere....where they assured me any issues would be resolved before shipping.My guitar came out of the box buzzing (dry) like a saw....slightly less noticeable amped... Had a skilled friend work on it...and amped, a good deal of the buzzing was removed...but certainly not enough... could have raised the string higher, but I don't want to play a violin!Dry- it was still buzzing plenty...Techs told me that it has something to do with the acoustic pickup....tho physically there is no interaction....(When they remove the pickup the buzzing disapears.) Another skilled guitarist thought the magnetic pickup might be internally loose causing the buzz...Awaiting another 339...which I am told IS shipping noiselessly....Make what you can of all of this.....

Nothing to gripe about and lots to love. Ilowered the action myself but found nothing wrong with the "nut" as one other poster mentioned. Stays in tune very wel and has a built-in tuner in the bezel around the neck pick up which is easy to use. This is not a cheap imitation of Gibson but actually a competitive guitar for a lot less moolah. I looked into changing things and decided, that it would be silly and expensive and not buy you much (unless you wanted to install a Bigsby on it). Mono, stereo and USB facilities. I've been able to get a varitety of very great sounds out of this quitar--from classic solid body arch top to sizzling rock.

I've had this Guitar for a month and a half now and I think I have it more or less sorted out. This is the second Guitar I have bought that the little card in the box said setup was done buy Gibson USA. It's about time Gibson learned to setup a guitar, they've had how many years to figure it out? Both the Casino Elitist and this 339 Ultra were unplayable out of the box. It needed a complete set up. The biggest issue being the nut was way to high. Fretting a string @ the first fret would sharpe the string half a step! I got the Phelem Blue & I love the colour. The fit and finish is good. not as good as my Cassino was but at only half the price pretty decent. The door on the battery is rather flimsy and the tuners aren't much, I'll probably change them out.The pickups aren't bad sounding as good as any humbuckers I've had. I changed out the bridge pickup for a Gretsch Filtertron, which sounds incredibly sweet in combination with the Shadow. This is a very picky guitar in its setup and playing technique. I have had to focus on picking and strumming lighter not my usual aggressive style. SRV would have hated this guitar. It's the Shadow Mag and light strings (I'm using 10-52s heavy bottoms, they help as it's the bottoms that will buzz) that causes the issues, pick hard and it will reward you with string buzz. I find if I keep the gain on it down it helps. I run it thru a K&K preamp to bring the signal level up instead of the built in gain. I run the acoustic to the PA and the electric to either my Fender Harvard or Blues Junior. The sounds this combination makes is amazing in it's complexity. Ear candy that will put a smile on your face. This guitar is not for everyone I would not recommend it to a beginner. But if your willing to spend some time working thru the bugs I think you'll be happy with the sounds this guitar can make, and that's what it's all about.

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And best of all, the Ultra-339 is loaded with Ultra technology! <br /><br /><strong>Great Tonewoods<br /></strong>While the Ultra-339 is packed with cutting edge technology, it still maintains the same basic specifications that made ES-style guitars the choice of two generations of artists from Chuck Berry to B.B. King to Alex Lifeson. The Ultra-339 features a laminated maple body with a solid center block, classic f holes, and a comfortable 24.75&#34; scale SlimTaper™ &#34;D&#34; profile mahogany neck, which is glued-in with a mortise and tenon neck joint. The 12&#34; radius rosewood fingerboard has 22 medium jumbo frets just like vintage ES-style archtops, a 1.68&#34; nut and mother-of-pearl dot inlays. The Ultra-339 comes in three beautiful color finishes: Cherry, Natural and Vintage Sunburst.<br /><br /><strong>Two Great Pickup Systems in One Guitar</strong><br />At the heart of the new Ultra-339 are two pickup systems. The classic pickup system features Epiphone&#39;s new ProBucker™ humbucker pickups—a ProBucker-2™ in the neck position and a ProBucker-3™ in the bridge position. Both are patterned after Gibson&#39;s famous BurstBuckers™ and are wound to the same specs as the Kalamazoo factory&#39;s legendary PAF pickups. <br /><br />Epiphone&#39;s ProBuckers™ feature authentic 18% nickel silver base and cover, Elektrisola wire, accurate bobbins, slugs and screws and sand casted Alnico-II magnets to give you that classic &#34;Patent Applied For&#34; airy tone that defines rock and roll. <br /><br />The second pickup system features Shadow™ Germany&#39;s patented NanoMag™ pickup embedded discretely at the end of the fingerboard. Featuring three samarium cobalt magnets, an air coil, and active electronics, this low-impedance pickup captures subtle body acoustics and string harmonics. Together, you get powerful humbucker-driven rock crunch as well as shimmering acoustic-like tones and everything in-between. <br /><br /><strong>One-Of-A-Kind Electrics Built-in</strong><br />Built discretely into the bridge pickup mounting ring is a full-function, chromatic tuner. Just push the ON/OFF button and sound is immediately muted when the tuner is activated. Eleven color-coded LED&#39;s identify the note and whether it&#39;s sharp, flat or in-tune. Also, to allow quick and seamless changes between each pickup system, the Ultra-339&#39;s NanoMag™ Volume control now doubles as an A/B switch. Just push it in and quickly toggle between ProBuckers™, NanoMag™ or both pickup systems with no delay and no &#34;pop.&#34; Two additional LED&#39;s on the pickup mounting ring provide a visual indicator of which pickup system is active (Red=NanoMag; Blue-Magnetic or Red/Blue=Both). <br /><br /><strong>Hook-Up Directly To Your Computer</strong><br />The Ultra-339 features three different outputs. By using the standard 1/4&#34; MONO output, both the ProBuckers™ and NanoMag™ are mixed into one signal. Plug in an additional 1/4&#34; cable into the STEREO output, and the ProBuckers™ are routed through one cable and the NanaMag™ the other. In this way, you can send the ProBuckers™ to your favorite guitar amp and the NanoMag ™ to a PA or an acoustic guitar amp. Using the A/B switch, you can now change &#34;on-the-fly&#34; between the two outputs. <br /><br />The third output is USB. 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